A Whole New World
by C.A. Elenath
Summary: Adjusting to life at SPD isn’t as easy as Jack would let on—but there’s a C level cadet willing to help him out. A collection of stories featuring JackOC.
1. Impressions

**Disclaimer**: _After reading some articles about potential copyright legalities regarding fanfiction, I decided to make a semi-serious disclaimer. I don't own nor am I affiliated with Power Rangers: SPD in any way. This story is for pure stress relief, my own and my readers', and I am collecting not a cent for my work. Ree is my original creation._

**Author's Note**: _The bits of Ree's backstory mentioned in "Night Watch" and "After School Visit" have been nullified by certain revelations in the episode 'Reflections'. Therefore, I will regard those two stories as AU from this and all future stories involving Ree. _

- -

**Impressions**

He saw her on the outdoor distance shooting range, taking out plate after plate in the sky with good old-fashioned bullets. The targets weren't really plates; they were small white discs that launched from some machine in the tower to the right of field, and projected holograms while in the air to simulate moving targets. The holograms came in the craziest shapes—ducks, starfish, mushrooms, etc. Once the hologram was hit, it ceased and the disc went back to the machine.

This wasn't the first time he'd seen her. He vaguely remembered her talking with the other Rangers once. He also spied her in the mess hall early one morning with the Blue Ranger.

"_Light brown."_

_She had a folded newspaper page in one hand, and a spoon in the other. She shoveled some cereal in her mouth before dropping the spoon in the bowl and pushing it towards the Blue Ranger._

_Sky picked up the spoon and took a bite of the bowl's remaining content. "Ecru."_

"_Perfect!" She picked up the pencil and scribbled something on the newspaper page._

_They went back and forth like that, five-or-fewer-words exchanges, all the while picking food from each other's trays._

Recalling that memory, he couldn't help but wonder what the relationship between those two was. They didn't talk about anything but the crossword, during the time he spied on them at least. He wasn't aware of any friends the Blue Ranger might have had outside the team.

And admittedly, he was curious because he thought she was cute.

He waited until she was reloading her rifle to approach her. He came from behind her, but she heard him first and glanced back. When she saw him, she laid the rifle on the ground and stood up straight.

"Sir," was all she said.

The formality was more distasteful this time than usual.

"You're pretty good at that," he remarked casually, nodding at the weapon on the grass.

"Thank you, sir."

"Name's Jack," he corrected lightly, half a second before he realized she probably already knew that.

"Thank you, Jack," she responded evenly.

Cute, but a little stiff. Probably not interested in him, or else she just wouldn't allow it. But her words had seemed almost teasing, like very subtle—too subtle—sarcasm, and though her expression looked neutral, there was a look in her eyes that he supposed was what people meant when they talked about eyes dancing.

"May I?" he pointed to the rifle again.

In response, she picked up the weapon and offered it out to him.

He didn't work with actual bullets very often. Training mostly involved laser weapons; shells were considered somewhat archaic equipment, especially in enforcement work. The rifle he held now was expectedly heavier than its laser counterpart, and he had to adjust his hold on it a few times as he sighted down the barrel experimentally.

"Why don't you use a laser rifle?" he asked.

The cadet had moved to a few steps behind him, and was holding the control for releasing the targets.

"I like the challenge," she said simply.

"I see," he turned slightly to glance at her from the corner of his eye. "You won't be using these much in the field."

"Yes, sir."

He made a face, but he was a man not easily deterred from his goals. Though he was tempted to glance back at her, he did not; he simply adjusted the rifle one last time and asked her to send out some targets.

Another "yes, sir" was followed by a beep.

He couldn't shake the feeling that she was purposely trying to annoy him—and succeeding—but it couldn't have been anything in her manner, which was impeccable. And he'd be defying protocol himself if he told her to cut it out. He focused on his original plan, and turned his attention to the first wave of targets that were beginning to fly.

A purple starfish got it right in the eye, and a mushroom had its cap completely blown off. Three other targets were whizzing around the same area in the sky, and an eager smirk crossed his face as he waited for them to line up. It was a tough shot, what with the distance of the field and the fact that things like gravity and air friction altered the path of actual shells, but he squeezed off one bullet, and felt a surge of satisfaction when all three holograms shattered. He had practiced that shot for weeks, after the fiasco with Sky's upstart alien friend.

He glanced back at the cadet with a confidently cocked brow, and was met with a sterile gray gaze.

"Another round, sir?" she asked when he didn't say anything.

He guessed she wasn't very impressed.

"Why not," he hitched up the rifle again. "Turn it up a level this time."

"Yes, sir."

The movements of the targets were a lot more erratic this time, and a higher degree of precision was required to make them disappear. Quick reaction was required also, as these targets tended to dart away at the last moment.

He'd intended to show her exactly why he was the Red Ranger, but he soon found the little hitch in his plan. She seemed neither impressed nor intimidated by him. He had had his share of cadets who either glowed or cringed at his attention, but they were usually D squad recruits. She was a C-class cadet, and was probably a good deal less green than her D-class counterparts.

Well, if he couldn't impress her right off the bat—and he found he liked the unexpected challenge—he'd just have to find an excuse to keep her company longer. Maybe until she got the hint that he wasn't after protocol.

When he finished with the targets, he turned around, appraised the weapon a little, then held it out to her.

"Try another round," he said.

She looked a little puzzled now, uncertain of his purpose out here, perhaps even a little suspicious of it, but she said nothing of it.

"Yes, sir." She came forward and accepted the rifle. He took the target control from her and stepped back to watch her orientate herself with the weapon. Her stance was very performance eval quality; weight perfectly distributed, arms at a specific angle, even her fingers were in the exact position as was taught in Weapons class.

"Ready," she said.

She probably thought he was out here for some sort of unofficial inspection, so he decided to use that ploy as his excuse to linger. He pressed the button on the control, and realized too late that the targets were still set on a higher level of difficulty. He stepped a little closer to her, so he could give her helpful pointers as needed.

The white discs began to emerge, and she immediately blew one from the sky. With a silent and deadly concentration that even he could feel, she took down the rest of the targets one by one, each shot having no less gusto than that first one.

She turned smartly on her heel to face him, and he blinked. Not green at all.

"Satisfactory, sir?"

"Very." By now, he figured the close contact defensive drills excuse wouldn't work with her either.

"Exceptional marksmanship, cadet."

"Thank you, sir," she paused, then added, "It's my best area."

He nodded. "What's your name?"

"Ree Atlantis, sir."

He finally had a reference for her face.

"Was this too easy for you?"

"A bit, sir," she answered.

"I see," he pretended to contemplate a moment. "I certainly hope your commendable skill isn't going unnoticed."

She allowed a very slight, satisfactory smile. "Perhaps you can put in a good word for me, sir."

"I might just have to," he rubbed his chin. "Tell you what. I'm going to go get myself another rifle, and when I come back, I want you to show me exactly what you can do. Sound good?"

Suddenly there was a confident, almost arrogant look about her. "Yes, sir."

He raised an eyebrow at her less-than-neutral demeanor, and to his surprise, she actually smirked at him. Just a little.


	2. Fly

**Disclaimer**: _PRSPD and all paraphernalia under that umbrella do not belong to me. Ree is my original creation._

**Author's Note**: _This story takes place not long after Jack and Z joined SPD, before they've really gotten the hang of things. _

- -

**Fly**

"Hey…where are we going?"

Ree was leading him through an unfamiliar wing of the Academy, one she seemed to know as intimately as all the rest. In the dimly lit corridors they took a number of complicated turns, enough to make him think they were going in circles but it was probably just the monotonous décor numbing his brain. Ree was a confident enough navigator, never pausing or looking back. She was pulling him by the wrist.

"Zord Bay One," she replied. Her answer puzzled him, until he realized he had never entered the zord bay from anywhere but the jump tubes in the Command Center. Of course there were other ways to get into the enormous hangar, but he had never had to think about it before.

The door that Ree led him to was normal enough-looking, and he watched with interest as she punched in an entrance code.

"How do _you_ know the entrance code to get into the zord bay?"

"I know the technicians," she answered, stepping through the door before it was even all the way open. Her fingers slid off his wrist. "C'mon."

She had a little bounce in her step as she strode into the room, her characteristic energy defying the fact that it was three in the morning. In the far end of the hangar, the goliath battle vehicles sat partially veiled in shadows. Funny how for all the times he'd driven them out, he never noticed, really noticed, just how massive they were.

"Why are we here?" he called after his unlikely guide. The metal of the walls and floor caused his voice to resonate hollowly across the wide space.

Ree twisted her head around, loose hair swinging. "I told you, I want to show you something!" She beckoned impatiently. "Hurry up!"

It wasn't often that a lower ranking cadet dared to rebuke him, even just jokingly. They all seemed uncomfortable around him, and were either too intimidated to speak or too eager to please, which made it tough to make friends around here. Ree's easy audacity was refreshing, a welcome shred of normalcy that was amazingly subtle at times, and present since the first time they met. It made him wonder how a character like her had ended up at a place as stuffy as SPD—surely there couldn't be that many unique cases around like him and Z.

"We're not going to get into trouble for this, are we?" he asked as he jogged a few steps to catch up to her.

She gave him a speculative look. "Probably not you."

He groaned. "So in other words, we could get in trouble for this."

"You have higher security clearance than I do."

"Yet you're the one who knows how to get in here."

She grinned, and her large gray eyes changed in some subtle way he couldn't communicate to reflect her amusement. Eyes that were almost a little too big for her face—that was one of the first things he had noticed about her. Their color reminded him of a rainy sky. He had hated rain back when he lived on the streets, but now—now he didn't think rain was so bad.

"You've got a point," she said, tilting her head in concession.

He didn't quite remember what they'd been talking about, but it didn't matter. She grabbed his wrist again and pulled him towards a cage-like lift that would take them up into the rafters and catwalks that ran alongside each zord, allowing access to their various parts. A few twiddlings of the switches in the control box and the lift hummed to life.

"You sure you know what you're doing?"

She waved away his question. "I know these babies like the back of my hand."

He shut the waist-high mesh gate behind him securely, and glanced around as the car shuddered once before beginning a slow, smooth ascent. "I don't think I want to think about why you were anywhere near my zord."

"Nervous?" she asked innocently.

He snorted. "You wish."

Her smile widened but she didn't reply. Instead, she turned aside and rested her elbows on top of the safety gate, a distant look on her face as she gazed out into the hangar.

"I began at SPD as an avionics engineer," she said, and the nostalgia in her voice caught him off-guard as much as the occupation. "When I was little, my dad told me stories about what it was like to fly—he said it was a timeless experience in the pilot's chair. Since then, I've always wanted to fly.

"But I got sidetracked by engineering for a while. These things are that much more amazing when you know what makes them tick. I got hired on with the maintenance crew, and the work was long, dirty and absolute bliss. I loved knowing that every re-wire, every circuit overhaul, even every wax job was keeping something potentially dire from happening. Or else making for a smoother ride at least. When I was clearing the air junk that got caught in the turbines, I could feel the residual heat from the engines…"

She stopped, seeming a little embarrassed to have gotten so animated. "Sorry. That's the nerd in me getting turned on. I always liked a challenge, and these really are the height of defense sophistication. At least on this planet."

He waved away the apology. "It's cool. I like challenges too." He stepped up beside her and leaned with his elbows on the gate as well. "If you loved working with them so much, why did you quit? Why become a Ranger instead?"

"Only Rangers are sitting in the driver's seat of these puppies. And…" Her tone turned a little cryptic. "I suppose you could say it was a bit of good ol' peer pressure."

"Care to elaborate on that?" he prompted after a pause.

Ree smiled fondly. "Kara Sullivan."—a tall, leggy blonde on C squad—"I'd spend my lunch breaks with her on the target range back when I was on the tech crew and she was in D squad. One day she told me she thought I'd make a good Ranger—I thought she was humoring me, though—and kind of dared me to try out for it. I passed the admittance tests and…suddenly it just seemed like the right thing for me to do. I've gotten this far, so maybe Kara was on to something."

"Is it still?"

"Is it still what?"

"Is it still the right thing for you to do?"

She gave him an interested look now which he didn't quite know how to interpret, and that made him slightly uncomfortable.

"What?"

"Definitely not Academy trained," she said in a musing tone.

He frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Nobody here questions their ascension towards Ranger status, especially if they've got it in them to make it there in the first place." Her gaze was more pointed now. "Especially if they've made it to the rank of Red Ranger."

Ree knew she was on to something, and it wasn't likely she'd let go of it easily. While most of the higher-ups within the Academy knew where he and Z had come from, he had never been too sure how much the other cadets knew. He figured he wouldn't go advertising his past just yet, not when he saw how hard these cadets worked to earn the same privilege that got handed to him without so much as a push-up.

Z had concurred, and so far seemed happy in her new life. And he was too, sort of. He was grateful for what he'd gained: a great team, a more stable existence, and some faint level of deification that came from wearing the color red. Food, clothes, and shelter were no longer an object. But all of that, however, didn't necessarily mean he wanted to remember how he'd come by those things, how his hand had been forced in the matter, partially by Cruger and partially by Z. If it had been entirely up to him, he would probably still be out on the streets, helping the people that had come to depend on him, that he had had to abandon. That was true need out there, true frailty. That was something more real than any cadet here would ever know, and something he couldn't forget. He'd often wanted to tell these cadets, green but well meaning, that some people needed a different type of hero.

But he didn't share these thoughts with anyone, not even Z. Or maybe especially Z. The more he gelled with his teammates, the more disloyal the thoughts felt. Z might have been hurt that he didn't see their grand new opportunity the way she did, and he didn't even want to imagine what Sky would dish out if he knew Jack hadn't even wanted the Red morpher in the first place.

He suddenly realized that Ree was still waiting for some sort of reply, but he refused to take her bait.

"They brainwash you good here," he said flippantly, and Ree looked startled. "But you gotta remember what it's really about—"

Kids under the overpass he stole pizza for once a month. A blanket for old Mrs. Taderos in Cardboard Village. Clothes for little Frieda who had become an expert dumpster diver before she'd even lost all her baby teeth.

"—helping people."

Without the conviction he felt, his words probably would have sounded pretty cheesy, a cheap little message that would convince no one. But Ree's expression changed, a little pucker of her brow taking her from curiosity to…sadness?

"We agree on something then," she said quietly, entirely sincere, and then she looked away.

A part of him was glad to have her off his tail, but another part of him wondered what exactly had just happened. He hesitated a moment, then sidled up closer to put his arm around her shoulders.

"Not the only thing, I hope," he said, and was rewarded with a smile. She leaned her head against him companionably, a faint warm pressure through his uniform.

At last the lift reached its highest level, a catwalk ninety feet in the air that stretched across the width of the hangar's rear wall. Ladders and stairways hung down from it in a twisting labyrinth of steel that was every acrophobe's nightmare. Ree stepped out onto the catwalk, moving with all the grace of a nymph—or a technician who had once ruled it, as the case seemed to be—her rubber-soled regulation shoes hardly making a sound against the steel mesh. She turned down a ramp that led to a lower catwalk, slid down a ladder, went down a couple of flights of stairs—this was turning out to be as complicated as one of their obstacle courses. Just as he was about to ask where they were going, she hopped up onto the guard railing. He darted forward.

"What are you—?"

"Trust me." And she jumped.

So it wasn't that far down, he realized, when he looked over the edge, maybe twelve feet or so. She had landed on all fours on the gleaming siren of Delta Runner One. She stood and straightened her uniform, then looked up at him with a beguiling smile. No smirk, no challenge. One hand lifted up towards him.

"What'd I get myself into?" he muttered, but how could he refuse an invitation like that? He climbed over the railing, knowing he had leapt—and fallen—from places higher than this, but those had been unavoidable incidents. Nothing like cavorting in the zord bay in the middle of the night.

He spied a level spot on which to land and dropped down. He used his hands to absorb some of the impact as she had, but she caught his arm as he landed anyway. He stood and looked around.

"So what is it you wanted to show me?"

"This is it." She spread her arms to her sides and walked to the front edge of the siren, looking down at the bold number '1' painted on the hood. Delta Runner One had the most streamlined shape of the entire fleet, with a smooth, low-grade slope from the apex down to the nose.

"Have you been on the Runners out of uniform before?" she asked.

He went and joined her on the precipice. "Can't say that I have."

"Does it feel any different?"

He glanced around, feeling that the answer she was looking for was 'yes'. He wandered over to the left edge of the siren. "Not really."

He looked down, and realized what a different story the sides of his zord presented. There was no gradual slope here, just a sheer drop to the hangar floor far below.

"What are you looking at?" Ree came over and stood beside him.

"How tall is this thing?" he asked, still squinting down at what he assumed was the hangar floor. It was actually hard to tell because of the shadows cast in a half-lit zord bay.

"Thirty point five feet," she answered. "Ninety-two feet long, seventy-three feet wide. Thirteen hundred tons of save-the-world goodness."

"Those the exact specs?"

"You want decimals?"

He chuckled, but she didn't sound like she was kidding. "No thanks, I'm good. Hey, so be honest with me…which one's the most powerful?"

She was amused. "What's it to you?"

"Not much." He shrugged in mock-casualness, rocking back on his heels. "Just twenty bucks. Has to be an expert's opinion, though. Say, an avionics engineer?"

She grinned, and put a fist to her chin in feigned thoughtfulness. "Hmm. I wonder if I can guess who your money's on. Could it be," she gestured at Delta Runner One with the fanfare of a game show hostess, "Mickey? Or Minnie?"—Delta Runner Two—"Moe? Mary? Or Moonshine?"

"Moo—what?" He laughed. "You made those up…right?"

"In a sense, yes." Her grin was positively elfin. "I started the habit and the other techs picked it up because they're a hell of a lot easier to say than Delta Runner so-and-so. Plus, it's more fun. Minnie's a play on 'mini', seeing as Delta Runner Two is by no means 'mini' at all. It's the tallest one, as you can see, and is—was my pet project."

He automatically glanced upward at his zord's hulking blue neighbor, the only aerial zord in the fleet, with its two turbine engines currently curled at its sides like massive wings. "Moonshine's the name of bootleg home brew."

"It was also the name of a device in World War II that falsified multiple pulse signals on German radars, to make them think the Brits were coming."

He looked at her blankly, and she shrugged.

"Nerd," she said, a little self-consciously, then grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the centerline of the zord, skirting the jump tube "C'mon."

She began walking down the nose, sideways so she wouldn't slip, and let go of his hand after a few steps. He did likewise, and noticed how much more fluid her movements were, almost soundless on the metal. She'd probably done this a million times before.

The distance between them grew quickly, as he paused every so often to reassess the view. It was interesting see his Runner from the outside for once. Inside the cockpit, he relied entirely on video feeds, sensors, and radar to navigate, a somewhat terrifying prospect now that he saw, _really _saw, how big this thing was.

The windshield, then, might have been an entirely superfluous thing, a design element to keep his Runner from looking like one big red wedge on wheels. He stood on the center of the black plexiglass now, over where he assumed the cockpit should be. Was it actually under there? Since he didn't use the windshield anyway, the tiny control center theoretically could have been anywhere in the interior. He glanced up at the attached jump tube, the only way so far he had ever known to enter his zord, and saw that it aligned with the spot where he stood. It was entirely possible the cockpit was in fact underfoot.

He crouched down in curiosity, but visibility through the black plexiglass was nil. He tried to imagine the tiny room—the wheel, the gearshift, the inset for his morpher, the buttons and switches on the panel beneath the gearshift. One released the arms to connect to Runners Four and Five. Some only functioned in Megazord configuration.

But which one did what? He was suddenly reminded of a very explicit warning Kat had given him back when he'd received his crash course in zord piloting…

"Penny for your thoughts?" said Ree. The sound of her voice startled him. She was sitting on the windshield beside him.

"Can you drive these things without being morphed?" he asked.

"Sure. It's not easy to do, but it's definitely possible." She raised an eyebrow at him. "Why? Thinking about taking it out for a joy ride?"

"No. Just something Kat told me once. She said I should never, ever drive this thing unmorphed." Now he had to wonder if the scientist's warning had spoken to his lack of ability, rather than just a generally bad idea.

"Most wouldn't want to. Learning to drive a zord without the Power is pretty difficult." She regarded him with interest again. "Your powers allow you complete knowledge of its functioning almost instantaneously. Controls, navigation system, megazord formation, windshield wipers—all that information is implanted in your brain when you morph."

He nodded, vaguely remembering some paragraph he'd skimmed in the book on Ranger history he'd been given, something about unconscious learning that was associated with the 'Power'. More specifically, he remembered wondering what all the training was for if your powers taught you everything you needed to know anyway. The book had put him to sleep by page three.

"Maybe the info doesn't stick around when you demorph," she mused. "I always thought it did."

"Is it supposed to?"

"You tell me. You're the one with the morpher."

"No, it doesn't." He tapped on the glass. "I'm trying to figure out more than just the gas and the wheel right now."

"The left pedal is called the brake," she said with a laugh.

He made a face at her and poked her in the side, making her yelp and squirm away. "Fresh."

"Essential Ranger history and Ranger lore," she said. "Even if you don't remember the specifics out of uniform, you still should realize that the Power is what gives you whatever info you need when you need it. It's a…an instinct, if you will. A symbiotic relationship and unquestioned trust." She paused. "But you don't feel this?"

"Hey, I got the Cliff Notes version of 'how to be a Power Ranger.' I'm learning most of it as I go along."

He hadn't realized it was a slip until after he said it, but that was as close as he would come to revealing his past without her asking for specific details. It turned out, however, that he hadn't needed to bother with the elusiveness.

"Are you really from the streets?"

That was absolutely the last thing he'd expected her to say, the least thing he had been prepared for. His expression probably gave him away before he could even consider denying the truth.

"You knew all along, didn't you?" he demanded.

She shrugged. "C cadets know everything."

"Oh really?" How nice of her to play ignorant. "So what else do they know?"

"I'll tell you what they don't know." She met his gaze levelly. "They don't know how you walked into this Academy in handcuffs one day and walked out with a morpher the next."

Was he surprised that someone knew? Was he _upset _that _she_ knew?

"It was Cruger's idea," he said, more defensively than he meant to be. "He gave me a choice: either go to jail or become a Power Ranger."

"Go to jail for what?"

"For helping people! We stole food and clothing to give to people even needier than us, people who didn't have anything, not even their health sometimes. Kids who didn't have anywhere to go to—runaways, orphans. Or folks just down on their luck. You tell me why a four year old should have to know which dumpsters have the best food, or why a woman should lose her husband because it got too cold one winter. You tell me why it's a crime that I helped them and I'll tell you what the real crime is."

He didn't know why he was suddenly so touchy about the subject. So what if Ree knew? She was bound to find out eventually; he had just assumed it would be on his own terms. Maybe it was a delayed reaction to a considerably life-changing transition. He had never cared about what people thought of him, and he wasn't about to start. Of course, most of the people he had known had depended on him, sometimes for their very existence. They wouldn't know how to say an ill word about him if they'd tried. Many of them, especially the younger ones, looked up to him. In many ways, it wasn't so different from being a Ranger…

He shook himself out of his memories and glanced up warily. He was met with sympathetic gray eyes, two stormy irises that glimmered like rain on a flimsy tin roof.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly.

He didn't want her pity. "I'm not."

He needed to walk, to be alone. He stood up and went down the rest of the way of Runner One's hood, a little carelessly. He stood in the center of the boldly painted '1', feeling relieved that Ree hadn't chosen to follow him this time. She remained behind on the windshield, arms around her knees, watching him from a distance. He turned away and began to pace, up and down, up and down the number 1.

So now his story was out, sooner than he'd wanted and more violently than he'd preferred. It wasn't a big deal. It wouldn't really change anything anyway, not with his position, but that wasn't what was bothering him.

Ree was no longer watching him. She'd lain back on the windshield, arms under her head, eyes closed like some sunbather a faraway beach. Her tan colored uniform was stark against the dark glass.

A fly on a windshield, he thought suddenly. A little blonde fly on the windshield of an immensely powerful car. Everything about this was surreal, and yet…this was his life. When his brain was done swallowing the giant battle mecha, the space age weaponry, and the hostile aliens trying to take over the planet, there was nothing left to do but incorporate it all into his new perception of 'reality'. Being a Ranger was going to have be realer than the homelessness he'd left behind.

"_If we're gonna make a change, then we're gonna have to a part of something bigger."_

What was bigger than the monster he was standing on now?

He made his way back to the sunbathing fly, noticing how comfortable she looked there on the glass. She was at home here, no doubt, on the zords if not in SPD in general. He sat down beside her.

"I think I got it," he said.

She didn't move. "You think?"

"Just give me another week or two."

"Well…" A slow smile spread across her face. "Okay."

The smile was infectious. He watched her open her eyes finally and sit up. She combed a hand through her hair, tucking it back behind her ears.

"Just don't forget to have a little fun along the way."

He raised an eyebrow at that and she mirrored the expression perfectly, a pert little curve to her lips.

The kiss was a lightweight one, sweeter than most he'd known and undemanding, a little uncertain even.

"We need more people like you," she said softly, and he blinked, surprised at how good those words made him feel.


	3. Break

**Disclaimer:**_Are these even necessary anymore? PRSPD does not belong to me, though Ree is my own creation. So is this layout of the zord hangar. _

**Author's Note:**_This takes place within the time frame where Sky and Jack still don't like each other very much._

- -

**Break**

He'd never admit it, but sometimes his second-in-command was a little scary. Six feet one inch of twenty three year old dedication and compulsive training tendencies was what Jack faced every time he and Sky sparred. Sure, he'd beaten Sky a couple of times, and not just due to luck, but if he had to put his money down—or his life—Sky was the better fighter. It probably had to do with the Blue Ranger's need for perfection, and Jack didn't envy him for it. Nor did he envy Sky's austerity, not when a little less tension could have taken Sky a long way in multiple arenas. Team dynamics, for one. Girls, for another. Not that it was any of his business, but he sometimes wondered if a good lay would improve the Blue Ranger's attitude any. Part of his brain said of course it would. The other part said Sky wasn't actually human. After the incident with Sophie, who really knew around here?

The floor tumbled overhead as he hit the mat for the third time—in a row. Sky automatically held out a hand to him, but Jack had learned early on that the gesture told nothing about Sky's mood of the day. It was just good sportsmanship. Jack accepted the proffered hand, felt the strength in the arm attached to it as he was hauled to his feet. For a moment, he wondered what Sky thought his biggest strengths were, physical or otherwise. He then wondered what Sky thought his biggest weaknesses were, and then realized that was probably a moot question.

"Need a breather?" Sky asked in a carefully neutral tone. Jack wasn't fooled.

"No." He made a show of loosening the muscles in his neck. "I'm just getting started."

Sky merely shrugged, and Jack could see that the matter was out of his mind, just like that. Maybe he'd judged the Blue Ranger too soon. Maybe Sky wasn't deriving some sort of personal satisfaction out of sending him into the floor over and over again. Maybe this really was just a matter of training.

Part of his brain said yeah right.

Martial arts instruction at the Academy wasn't Jack's favorite activity of the day. They brought back memories of lessons taken when he was younger, at a community youth center that had sprung up one night next to the decaying old church. That was the foundation of his fighting skills, but the youth center hadn't lasted long. Nothing in his old neighborhood did. Faces came and went, some quickly and some slowly, both good people and bad. He used to return to the neighborhood almost every night, until it finally changed enough that it no longer felt like home. Then he began staying away, and became a wayfarer in New Tech. The streets taught him lessons in defense faster than any Academy seminar ever could. In a way, the time he spent at SPD was about learning to let some of those defenses down.

He ducked to avoid a jab from Sky's right hand. He had been defending for a while, pulling only a few punches that were never intended to land. His style normally incorporated more kicks, but there was an inherent risk to taking your feet off the floor, especially when fighting against someone who didn't have to. Upper body strength was an advantage Sky was well aware of. Forearms that could create forcefields was another. Sky's feet rarely left the ground when he was fighting.

They both paused for a second after such a long impasse, and it was here that the opportunity for faster reflexes to triumph opened. Jack lashed out with a roundhouse, and it connected. Sky went down, and Jack thought that was the end of it…until the Blue Ranger's leg swung around and took his feet out from under him just as he landed. He was on his back for the fourth time—a record for him.

He didn't get up right away, and predictably, Sky came over and stood towering over him.

"Are you even concentrating?" the Blue Ranger asked, sounding annoyed.

"You know sparring isn't my thing," Jack grumbled from the floor. He did much better in simulations, where the goal was to win, and improvisation trumped things like form and technique. Also, he was usually fighting with his teammates instead of against them.

"It's practice for the real deal," Sky said. "If you can't handle it in the training room, how are you going to handle it on the battlefield?"

"I'm not fighting _you_ on the battlefield, thank god. Besides, isn't it obvious by now that I can handle it? I'm still here, aren't I?"

Sky shook his head. "You can't count on tomorrow."

That startled Jack. Such had been the grand theme of his existence on the streets, where making every moment count was the only way to live. What did it mean when someone like Sky had to remind _him_ of that?

He started to push himself up off the floor, and the Blue Ranger offered a hand again. Jack took it automatically, but this time he thought there might have been something behind it. A five-minute truce, maybe.

"How about that breather?" he said.

"How about you let me know when you decide to take sparring seriously."

Sky brushed past him to grab his towel and morpher from the edge of the mats and then strode right out of the room. Ever the picture of self-control, Jack thought irritably. Before Sky, he hadn't realized it was possible to be wound that tight all the time.

He paced around the mat, stretching this limb and that, pretending to be winding down from a tough workout. He and Sky were capable of much more than this; their sparring sessions were usually best when they were both in competitive but good moods, or when they really wanted to kill each. Whatever helped to make the fighting a little more genuine.

He looked up to see a pair of eyes peering around the doorframe, followed by a smile and a lithe body skirting the doorjamb.

"Three to four again?" Ree asked, approaching the mat. It took him a moment to figure out what she meant—those were the stats he had given her for his last match with Sky. They were a lie, of course, and he considered lying again.

"No," he confessed. "Try zero to four."

"Bad day?"

"Nah." He wondered how much she had seen, if anything. "I just…I don't know what it is today."

"Long day?"

"No…" Because getting up in the vicinity of 7 a.m. every morning should have been second nature by now. "Haven't even had a patrol yet."

"Will you?"

He couldn't recall the schedule at that moment. "Probably."

She looked thoughtful for a second. "Maybe the fresh air will do you good."

"Maybe. We sure don't get a lot of that in here."

Ree stepped up onto the mat. "Want to make it zero to five?"

He raised an eyebrow. "In your dreams, cadet."

"I thought you'd say that." She put up her fists. "Now we have to do this."

When he realized she was completely serious, he reluctantly assumed a ready stance. "You know, this isn't going to make me feel any better."

"I wouldn't have guessed from the smile on your face."

"But I'm not smiling."

"Well, you should be."

She threw the first punch, which he easily blocked. The next two were equally harmless. An unexpected snap kick almost got him, and that inspired her to modify her tactics. He suddenly found himself under fire by rapid and somewhat creative footwork, not unlike what he saw from Syd, and he threw in some kicks of his own.

"You're much better with a gun," he remarked, deflecting a chop aimed at his ribs.

"Yeah. I am."

Patience was on her side though, and because her skill wasn't quite enough to engage his complete attention in the fight, his interest level dwindled and his efforts grew dull.

"Jack!"

Sky appeared in the doorway, back in his uniform and looking freshly showered. "Commander Cruger wants to see us in the Command Center, ASAP."

Ree's foot was five inches from his chin when Sky called his name, and it was still hanging there mid-kick after the Blue Ranger finished speaking. Jack looked at the foot in surprise and she put it down, stepping back slightly. She nodded minutely at Sky in acknowledgement.

Jack answered his teammate with a half-salute, half-wave with two fingers, but Sky didn't move.

"I'll be right there," he called, frowning. Sky just jerked his head in a clear get-a-move-on gesture.

"Maybe it's important," Ree said, quietly enough so only Jack could hear.

"When isn't it," was his dry reply. "I'll catch you later."

He touched her shoulder as he walked past to grab his morpher off the floor and follow Sky out the door. The Blue Ranger was curiously silent as they walked down the hallway towards the lift.

"So what's eating you?" Jack asked.

"Nothing."

"It's gotta be something."

"You're the one who's distracted today."

"Like you've never been."

"Not when it's important."

They reached the lift, but the car was two floors above theirs and traveling upward, so Sky immediately headed towards the escalators, taking them two steps at a time.

The Command Center was eight levels up.

"Do you know how to have fun, Sky?" Jack asked. Taking the stairs two at a time was decidedly more arduous for him than it was for his longer-legged teammate.

"Yes," Sky replied a little too quickly.

"What do you like to do?" Jack pressed.

"I like to run," Sky said.

Jack snorted. "I said for _fun_."

"I heard you." Sky sounded exasperated. "What's wrong with running?"

"Nothing." Unless you were running from self-important cops with no sense of humor. "What else do you like to do?"

"You mean what do I like to do that you might approve of."

"That's the idea."

"Choosing leisure activities according to your standards isn't exactly a goal of mine."

"That's too bad, Number Two."

Sky visibly bristled in front of him, and Jack instantly regretted his words. He hadn't meant to say anything that spiteful; it just sort of slipped off his tongue. Now he'd made things miserable for himself and possibly the rest of the team for at least a week. He stayed behind Sky even after they were done climbing the escalators because if they looked each other in the eye right then, they might just decide to kill each other. And Jack didn't have his blaster on him.

"I'm going to change into my uniform," Jack said as they passed through the dorm wing. Sky didn't answer or even break his stride. He kept walking as if Jack didn't exist.

_Swell. _As soon as he was alone in his room, Jack allowed himself a loud sigh. That Number Two comment had been out of line, but at the same time, he wished Sky would just lighten up and accept his position. He was tired of walking on eggshells and having to modify his own behavior just to maintain peace on the team.

He stripped off his workout clothes and pulled on the uniform he'd left across the bed. The jacket didn't wrinkle easily, and so he was prone to throwing it over whatever furniture was handy, but he had to be careful with the pants. The vertical stripes down the sides only made creases more noticeable. He wondered what the commander wanted, and why he hadn't called the Rangers directly via morpher or by PA system if it was so important. He left his room still tugging on the zipper of his jacket, and was two steps away from the Command Center when he realized his blaster was still on his nightstand.

- -

He snuck out after lights out. The night was much more pleasant to wander in, he found, when he had a room to return to afterward. He wore civilian clothing and took the stairs all the way to the ground floor, where he phased through walls instead of using doors to avoid giving anyone the opportunity to tell him to go back to his room. Never mind the fact that he outranked everyone except the commander and Dr. Manx. In the morning he could take orders. For now, the night was his.

One of the rooms he passed through was the zord bay, because it was so cavernous and chock full of shadows to hide in. It had been during these nightly excursions that he learned the zord bay was rarely completely empty. Sometimes it was an entire team doing maintenance and repair work through the night. Sometimes it was just one guy drooped over a table half-asleep, waiting for a scan to finish.

Tonight there were four people up in the rafters, all holding data pads and possibly only trying to look busy. One of them had on a C squad uniform, and was leaning lazily against the railing with her data pad hanging over the edge. Jack thought a long while about what he wanted to do before he walked out of the shadows and towards the zords.

"Hey!" one of the technicians shouted down at him. "Are you authorized to be here?"

He was confused for a second. Maybe the man didn't recognize him from all the way up by the ceiling. He glanced at the C cadet and saw that she was laughing.

"Don't you guys recognize your Red Ranger when you see him?" she chided her alarmed colleagues, and waved down at him. He waved back. The technicians appeared to relax.

"I'll be right down, sir!" she called, and headed in the direction of the steel mesh lift. He grimaced.

"Sorry, sir," the tech that had yelled at him offered after a silent pause. This time, Jack couldn't resist a grin.

"No problem."

It was a long minute before the lift reached the ground and Ree bounced out over to him.

"Where's your uniform?" she asked.

"I don't work past eleven," he answered, only half kidding. He looked her uniform up and down. "What are you doing down here so late?"

"Runner Two is experiencing bugs." She wiped her hands on her pants absently. "They're making Dr. Manx uneasy."

"We took them out just yesterday."

"It started after you came back."

He frowned. "Is it serious?"

"That's what we're trying to figure out."

He nodded, glancing up at the giant blue zord. "You think the bug can spread from zord to pilot? Or vice versa, maybe?"

"Oh, Jack." Her sudden familiarity threw him off. She sounded amused, but also…tired. "What _do_ you have against Sky?"

The familiarity with which she spoke Sky's name surprised him even more. "Oh, you're siding with him now?"

"I can't side with anyone until I have your answer," she shot back.

He thought about how he could best summarize his issues with his second in command, but there was a more pressing question in his mind. "How well do you know him, anyway?"

"Sometimes very well," she replied immediately, as if she had addressed the same question before. "Sometimes not." And before he could inquire further, she turned away from him, "Let's go somewhere a little more private."

So he had no choice but to follow her to the alcove that served as the break area for the tech crew. The partial wall that sectioned it off from the rest of the room hid them from sight. Ree headed immediately towards the coffee maker, deftly tossing the filter and used grounds into the trash and measuring out a fresh pot. She remained silent as she went over to the sink and gave her hands a thorough scrubbing, working up a thick layer of suds. She had slender fingers, and was possibly a nail biter.

"So…" Jack said to fill the silence.

Ree dried her hands thoroughly on a paper towel. She then walked right up to him and kissed him hard on the mouth, her arms going up around his neck.

"…okay," he said when she let him go. Her smile widened into a grin when the coffee maker began sputtering and burbling loudly.

"A smokescreen," he realized.

"Three steps ahead of you," she said, and kissed him again. His senses might have just been confused then, but he thought he tasted coffee on her lips.

"So where were you going?" she asked.

"Out," he said. She looked bored, and he added, "For a walk."

"Now?"

"Why not?"

"You were sneaking out," she guessed.

"Maybe."

"How'd you get in here? The door didn't chime."

"I didn't use the door."

"Any of them?"

He hadn't expected that response. "Nope."

"There's more than you think."

He paused. "How—"

She cut him off. "That's right, ask."

She smirked at him, and he tightened his arms around her, pulling her in so close she had to bend backwards slightly to compensate for balance. She squirmed once, discovered he really wasn't going to let her go, and became quite pliant in his arms. The sudden softening of her body turned him on in ways her more aggressive attitude couldn't, and he crushed his lips to hers. The world suddenly seemed insignificant and very far away.

"Jack…" Her fingers toyed with his dreadlocks at the nape of his neck, making his scalp tingle. "We're in public."

"Your fault," he said, the words muffled since he wasn't letting up.

"Coffee's done." She laughed, mouth curving up in a smile against his.

He drew back for just a second. "Sometimes…it's best to just stop talking."

She tried to look indignant…but couldn't do it. They resumed making out.

It was a great stress reliever, he thought hazily. He felt better than he had all day.

Eventually, voices drifting in from the zord bay made them draw apart.

"I should get back to work," Ree said softly.

He didn't answer; he didn't have to. The voice of responsibility trumped all around here. It was just an automatic reaction, as automatic as her tucking her hair behind her ear when there were no stray strands to tuck back.

"Are you still going for a walk?" she asked.

"Yeah. How late are you gonna be up?"

"Honestly?" she sighed. "A while."

"Maybe I'll stop by on my way back in." He shifted a bit. "You know, to say good night and everything."

"It might be morning," she warned, then smiled. "But I'd like that."

"Done."

So Ree went back to the zords and he continued on his way through the walls out into the night.


End file.
